Caradryel thought of all the wasted, half-finished endeavours he’d embarked upon in his life, only to discard them when something more appealing came his way.
‘This land rewards such work,’ Morgrim went on. ‘It is a serious land. You can carve a living here, if you work at it, but it will never repay sloth. I’ve seen the way you people look at the grime under the leaves and I know what you think of it, but we cherish every shadow, every pit. It is our place. You should not have come here.’
‘We have been in Elthin Arvan for a thousand years,’ countered Caradryel carefully. ‘There is room enough for both of us, is there not?’
Morgrim hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it messily. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
Caradryel paused before speaking again. ‘If I may, then, lord – a question.’
Morgrim grunted his assent.
‘Why are you not sending me back to Imladrik? Why are you entertaining his proposal at all?’
‘Because of who he is.’ Morgrim drew in a long breath. The leather-tough skin around his eyes creased as he remembered. ‘He never looked down on us. He did not scorn our food, nor our caverns, nor call us stunted. When I showed him the vaults of the Everpeak he remained silent. He bowed before the great image of Grimnir, and for a moment I could not tell whether it was elgi or dawi who stood there.’
When Morgrim spoke of Imladrik, his harsh voice softened a little, losing its cold edge of disdain.
‘I looked at him and I saw one of us,’ Morgrim said. ‘A soul that understood the path of duty.’ Morgrim glanced at Caradryel. ‘He learned Khazalid. He spoke it well, for an elgi. It took him twenty years, he told me, to master the greeting-forms, but he did it. I know of no others of your kind who have even tried, let alone succeeded.’
As Morgrim spoke, Caradryel remembered the ephemera of Yethanial’s patient scholarship at Tor Vael. He had wondered at the relationship between the two of them back then, struck by how pale and grey she seemed next to his vigorous dynamism, but perhaps there was something more profound there than appearances.
‘His brother is a fool and my people will rejoice when his neck is cut,’ continued Morgrim. ‘But my cousin was not wise-tempered either.’ The dwarf’s nose crinkled as he attempted what passed with him for a smile. ‘What might have been, if Imladrik and I had been the heirs? Perhaps none of this foolishness.’
He looked sidelong at Caradryel.
‘But all we have are the things set before us, and I will tell you this: I respect him for the reason I do not respect you. He is serious.’
Caradryel remembered how, despite himself, that accusation had wounded him. Alone among all the insults and contempt he’d faced from that dawi, that one had somehow struck home.
Perhaps, he thought, if I somehow make it out of here alive, I will have to address this. Perhaps I have been playing at life for too long.
Now though, days later, the march was coming to an end. Caradryel had taken his place beside Feliadh again. He and the other Caledorians walked by his side, leading their horses, looking dishevelled from the long trek but otherwise unharmed. For the last few hours the trees had been thinning out around them, gradually giving way to a bleak country of grass, sea-wind and loamy earth.
The dwarf vanguard pulled together, forming up into squares of impeccably ordered warriors. Morgrim and his bazan-khazakrum hearthguard had forged their way to the forefront, taking the combined standards of the army with them – a heavy-set collection of banners bearing stylised images of forges, hammers, flames and mountains.
‘Now we see where this game has led us,’ whispered Feliadh to Caradryel.
Caradryel nodded, keeping a careful watch on Morgrim’s progress ahead.
‘We will indeed.’
They crested a low tussock of tufted grass and sucking mud, beyond which the plains running down the sea suddenly opened out before them. Caradryel breathed in deeply, relishing the brine on the brisk air.
The sun was low in the east behind them, still pulling clear of the morning mists over the forest. Elthin Arvan’s coastline was visible in the distance, a line of barred silver crowned with piled seaborne clouds. The huge, proud outline of Tor Alessi broke its emptiness, jutting up from the plain in a mass of spear-sharp towers and soaring walls. Runes on its walls could be made out even from such a distance, picked out in gold and emerald, glowing warmly as the waxing sun caught the gilt tapestry.
Caradryel saw the city then as the dwarfs around him must have seen it – huge, bristling with arms and magic, a fastness unrivalled by any the elves had built in all their colonial lands. It looked indomitable, as solid as the Phoenix Throne itself.
If Caradryel had been one of those dour-faced, iron-clad warriors his spirits might have faltered then. Somehow, he doubted theirs would.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Feliadh. The Caledorian had started treating him with a good deal more respect since the events of the ambush.
‘The Doom of the Elves has made his arrival,’ Caradryel said dryly. ‘Now we wait for the Master of Dragons to make his.’
Alviar walked along Kor Vanaeth’s main thoroughfare. Loose soil and straw clung to his boots – the stone paving that had once made the roads a pleasure to walk on had long since been ripped up for repairs to the walls and citadel. Everything that had any military use had been taken, including ornamental stone lintels, bronze statues, even articles from the temples.
Alviar had disapproved of that at the time, as had most of the citizens. Liandra had been most insistent, though. She always was.
If he was honest, Alviar had never truly agreed with the decision to
